


Memories of Neverland

by AerinAlanna



Category: Peter Pan & Related Fandoms, Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 05:51:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8737336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AerinAlanna/pseuds/AerinAlanna
Summary: Assorted oneshots, mostly centered on Wendy.





	1. Chapter 1

I was young when I met Peter Pan. Young and innocent. Not so young and innocent, however, as to misunderstand what I felt for him. But I was ready to grow up, to wear lovely dresses and long gloves and dance at balls with young men who wanted to dance with me, and Peter…Peter wanted to be always a boy and never have to grow up. He told me that, many times, and it was the truth, I think. Except for the last time. When I was leaving and I asked him if he was positively sure that he didn’t want to come back with me…that time he wasn’t sure, and the bravado was forced.

I would have stayed with him, had he asked with different words. But he wanted me to be their mother, and I would have, but being their mother meant being his mother as well, and I couldn’t do that. If he had been willing to be their father, then perhaps. But I wanted to be more to him than that, and he wouldn’t allow me to do that. He wanted to stay forever as a young boy, on the edge of manhood, for he was the leader, and leaders are never afraid of anything. But Peter was afraid of growing up, of becoming a dull grown-up with no adventures.

But growing up, you see, is an awfully big adventure on its own. I would tell him that, if he ever knocked on the nursery window. I would tell him of my adventures—how the ballroom can be as tangled and dangerous as the jungles of Neverland, and the taste of love as cool and refreshing as swimming with mermaids, and the sight of my children asleep in their beds at night the same feeling as tucking in the Lost Boys, knowing that they trust me to keep away the pirates and Indians and wild beasts.

I’d tell him that my stories are just as thrilling here as there, that I am the same girl I was, just marked by my adventures as he is by his, though mine are lines and curves while his are scars. I have grown older, yes; but growing up happens only when you forget that you are young, which I have not. I am young when I play with my children, when I tell them stories; my laugh rings as clear and bright as theirs.  
Ah, Peter, if you could only understand! The pleasures of childhood do not disappear with age unless you allow them to.


	2. Chapter 2

“There is a place called Neverland,” I told my children in their stories each night, and wove tales of outlandish things that happened in that place to Peter and the Lost Boys and the girl they called Mother. It was far too easy to let myself be drawn into the stories, I see now, to remember the times when they were true, and the time when I was young. He would have little interest in me now, I am sure, for with the passing of time my body changed from girl to woman, as did my mind in many ways, too, I suppose, and I have become the mother that they named me so long ago in the forests and jungles of Neverland. 

I have three children now, and a fourth will arrive any day now. I think it will be a boy. This time, perhaps, I will have the courage to name him Peter, as I could not with my first son. Michael, I called him, for my brother who died in the war. The girls are Mary and Alice, and nearly as glad as I for the arrival of their sibling. The last few weeks of pregnancy are rarely comfortable for me, but as the rest passes so easily I can find little reason to complain. Peter would not understand that. The quietness and solitude of such discomfort hold no appeal for a boy whose pain comes always in the quest for glory, often with the accompaniment of loud noise and dramatic speeches. Childbirth would only confuse him; he will never become old enough to understand how the work and the pain make the joy sweeter, more brilliant. Then again, he never wanted to be the mother. That kind of responsibility terrified him in a way, for it is the sort that always follows you.


End file.
